


Mark My Skin (Make It Permanent)

by aliitvodeson



Series: Coin Comes Down Heads [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, Drabble, First Meeting, M/M, Past John/Mary - Freeform, friendship John/Sebastian, pre-slash John/Jim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2014-06-09
Packaged: 2018-02-04 02:08:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1762549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliitvodeson/pseuds/aliitvodeson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim hates covering Sebastian's appointments. He runs the parlor, but he doesn't enjoy getting his hands dirty. Until one of Sebastian's old army buddies comes in for a touch up, that is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mark My Skin (Make It Permanent)

"Boss?" Sebastian's blond head makes it past the door before Jim looks up at him. The man looks every inch the harried father he is, and even more so today. "Mia's school just called. They have to close early."

"So?" Jim puts his eyes back to his papers.

"I need to go pick her up. Can you cover my appointments?"

Jim sighed and put down his pen. His gaze as he studied was nothing short of disdain. His bourbon eyes focused on some point just below Sebastian's ear. "How many do you have?"

Sebastian was already holding up a paper, his tight handwriting in select columns, some notes on the right. "Two, and I should be back by the time my fifteen hundred comes."

"And the other one?"

Sebastian sighed. The effect was rather disarming, as he was three hundred pounds of muscle, pure military buzz cut and tattoos over his torso, limbs and neck. "Old military buddy of mine. He's coming in for a colour touch up on his piece. Wish I could do it, but..." He looked down at his watch pointedly.

Jim rolled his eyes. "Go. I'll cover him or reschedule, which ever he wants."

Sebastian was closing the door as he spoke, so Jim didn't hear the full thank you.

\---

"John Watson?" He was out of place. Completely out of place. Here was a man who should have been picking up his daughter at school, not coming into a tattoo parlor and eyeing the designs on the wall like he wanted to be anywhere but here. He's definitely Sebastian 9:30 appointment. No one else is in the parlor, and it's just three minutes past the half hour. There's no mistaking it when his head lifts at Jim's voice.

"Yes. I had an appointment with Sebastian."

Jim leaned against the counter. If the blond thirty something look like a father on way to a parent-teacher meeting, Jim was a business man, just back from a conference on Wall Street. White button up, black trousers, black curling script just poking out from his collar. "He had an emergency come up." At John's look of concern, Jim smiled. "Nothing dangerous. His daughter needed to be picked up from school early, that's all." John relaxed visibly. Oh, and wasn't that adorable. So concerned, so careful. "I'm Jim. I can put you down for another time, or do it myself."

John looked down. "If it's not too much trouble."

Jim ran his finger down the page of the appointment book. Not that he needed to review Sebastian's neat notes. It just helped relax customers when he didn't have everything memorized. "Colour touch up, redo of top of design."

"Yeah." John was blushing - adorably subtle, but a blush never the less. It was just the crest of his cheekbones, a faint pink tinge to his skin. "It's, uh, there's a bit of scarring. Just the top of it, but I'd like to have it fixed."

"Let me see." Jim's voice is hard, a cold order. He needs to see. What sort of scarring could this frumpy man have? Scarring that he didn't have when he got the original tattoo. He's embarrassed about it too, or he wouldn't be looking down at his feet as Jim continued. "You could wait for Sebastian, if you'd prefer." It takes an effort to make these words normal.

"No, no. I'll do it today." Then John is pulling off his jumper and Jim can see why Sebastian likes the man. He's wearing a sensible undershirt underneath, no button up, ready for this sort of inspection. Jim gets just a moment's view of his tanned chest and shoulders before John's got his back to Jim and he can see the piece.

He's never seen anything quite like it. The ink is brown, dark enough to stand out in stark relief. It's a star, Jim thinks. No, a flower within a star, drawn in brown ink on John's shoulder. And just above it, spilling over to the top point of the star, is the reason John's here now. A matching star practically, an outburst of raised skin and puckered redness. Entry wound, shot from a distance, bullet. Not treated for sometime after the incident.

Jim only realizes that he's touching the skin when John shifts beneath his fingers. He drops his hand.

"I can see why you want it fixed. It's a beautiful piece." Jim doesn't know if he's talking about the scar or the tattoo. Both maybe. "Do you have a picture of the original?" The scarring had barely touched the edge of the design. The smallest things make all the difference, in this business. Jim needs to know how it looked before it became so beautifully ruined.

John hands him the photo silently. There's another shoulder in the picture, skin against skin, but it's been cropped so all Jim's sees is a bit of white lace, brown skin and curving shoulder bone. What can only be John's shoulder is the focus. Perfect point star, graceful swirls, dark brown ink. He pretends he doesn't see how John's thumb caresses over the line of the mysterious woman's shoulder. He reads enough as John tucks the photo back into his wallet. A woman, most likely with a matching brown tattoo on her opposite shoulder. Weddings are so mundane. But John doesn't seem like the sort to care about that tiny bit of scarring. Unless, ah.

She died. Before or after the bullet, it didn't really matter. John needed the tattoo back to the perfect match of hers. Jim saw the story playing out in the man's soft blue eyes. Ex-soldier, doesn't much like tattoos, keeps this one in memory of her. This one and only this one.

"I can fix that up. And I'll give you a discount as well, for the inconvenience."

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired partly by another AU I'm writing, where Mary was a woman John meet in Afghanistan and who was killed in the fighting. Also inspired by a doodle that's turned into a full drawing.


End file.
